EVANSVILLE, Ind.  – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking at anti-abortion group’s dinner, criticized President Barack Obama for supporting abortion rights and challenged the idea that unplanned pregnancies are a nuisance that can be solved by abortion.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, spoke to an overflow crowd organizers said numbered 3,000 at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet Thursday night.

Some in the crowd wore white “Palin 2012″ T-shirts. Earlier, GOP National Chairman Michael Steele described her as one of the party’s standard bearers, though he said it was too early to judge what her standing would be in three years.

Palin said the challenges she faced during her pregnancy with her son Trig, who was born with Down syndrome, gave her an opportunity to live out her anti-abortion beliefs. She said she prayed often during her pregnancy, especially after tests revealed that her son would be born with the condition.

“The moment he was born, I knew that moment my prayers had been answered,” Palin said. “Trig is a miracle. He is the best thing that ever happened to me and I want other women to have that opportunity.”

She challenged the notion that children must be born perfect and that unplanned pregnancies are inconvenient and can be ended by abortion. “I know for sure my son is perfect just as he is, made in the image of God,” she said.

She asked the crowd to keep working for the “culture of life” in America.

“Life is ordained, life is precious,” she said. Palin said women who can’t give birth should have the opportunity to adopt children who might otherwise be aborted. She mentioned that her own daughter Bristol became pregnant as an unmarried teen and has since given birth to a son.

Palin also took Obama to task for his support of abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. She said deciding when babies get human rights isn’t above her pay grade – a reference to Obama’s response to a question from the Rev. Rick Warren last year. The Democrat said such questions were above his pay grade.

Palin received at least two standing ovations. After the speech, she addressed an overflow crowd in another room and thanked them for their support.

During a news conference earlier, Steele said Palin is among a crowd of GOP standard bearers that includes fellow governors Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

He also cited other prominent party figures, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and two congressmen, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence.

“We have a significant number of men and women in our party who are in a very good position right now to carry forward the standard of the GOP,” Steele said.

Pence represents Indiana and Cantor is from Virginia. Many Republicans also look to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as a presidential favorite in 2012.

Palin hasn’t ruled out a White House bid. Steele said it was too early to gauge what her standing would be in 2012.

Palin was cheered wildly as she entered the banquet hall with her husband, Todd. She stopped to sign autographs before taking her seat.

Palin, her husband and Trig also had been expected to attend a breakfast Friday morning with S.M.I.L.E., a nonprofit support organization for people with family members who have Down syndrome. Trig turns 1 on Saturday. But Palin said Trig, who had the sniffles, stayed home with his grandmother.

Some Alaska lawmakers criticized Palin’s decision to make the trip as the state Legislature approaches its Sunday deadline.

WASHINGTON – GOP national chairman Michael Steele said Thursday that he’s opposed to abortion and that Roe v. Wade should be repealed, commenting a day after a magazine quoted him as saying abortion was “an individual choice.”

Steele clarified his stance in a written statement after online publication of the interview with GQ magazine.

Steele, who is adopted, said in the interview that his mother had the option of getting an abortion or giving birth.

He said: “You can choose life, or you can choose abortion.” He said his mother chose life.

Asked whether he thought women had the right to choose abortion, Steele said: “Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.”

Steele was elected chairman of the National Republican Committee in January. He describes himself as “prolife.”

RALIEGH, N.C. — North Carolina Right to Life Inc. and North Carolina Pro-Life Democrats Inc. will hold a “Why Not NC? Rally for the Choose Life License Plate” at 11 a.m.  Tuesday at the main entrance of the General Assembly’s Legislative Building.

The Choose Life license plate is a specialty license plate approved in 22 states that has raised more than $10 million dollars to help pregnancy care centers, maternity homes and adoption agencies.

North Carolina has 130 approved specialty license plates.

The “Why Not NC? Rally” will be attended by Representative Mitch Gillespie, Representative Paul Stam, Rev. Msgr. Michael Clay, Barbara Holt, President of North Carolina Right to Life, Eva Ritchey, President of NC Pro-Life Democrats, Diane Hardee Executive Director of EPIC Center (Eastern Pregnancy Information Center) in Kinston and New Bern, Bobbie Meyer, Executive Director of the Pregna ncy Resource Center in Charlotte, Barbara Stevenson, State Director, Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship as well as other important pro-life leaders.  Also in attendance will be Ms. Tabitha Vinson and Ms. Tara Schwab who will share their story of how they were helped by a North Carolina pregnancy care center.

Where 1.8 million enraptured souls stood hearkening to the stylish cadence of President Barack Obama saying little but waxing hypnotic, others marched Thursday, their footsteps landing silently in the relative desolation of the National Mall and their cries for a cause that divides and discomfits reduced from scarcely audible whisper to fading gasp. For 36 years, abortion foes have gathered on the Capitol steps to decry Roe vs. Wade, but one wonders for how much longer will they come and to what end?

Since that Jan. 22, 1973, Supreme Court decision stripped federalism from the abortion question and made the procedure a legal federal right absent states’ rights, tens of thousands of people annually have braved the brisk Washington air to mark what they consider the anniversary of a country’s declared disdain for life.

The national press, never receptive to the possibility that Roe might be something other than recognition of an ordained right, takes notice these days in the way people commonly do houseflies, with a swift, dismissive wave of the hand.

Can the media be blamed? For almost four decades, abortion opponents have clamored, slavishly devoting themselves to the Republican Party, which has responded with a nod and a wink. This has wrought the passage of parental consent laws in some states, a ban on a rare late-term abortion procedure that the court might overturn and the election of three Republican presidents on the substantial strength of the pro-life vote.

Now comes another Democrat. Like Bill Clinton before him, Obama is rapidly going about dispelling myths, principally, that he is a reincarnation of Mao or someone slightly lesser, like FDR, but he likely will not relinquish ground on abortion, which he supports voraciously as an alternative to the horror of a woman being “punished with a baby.” So Obama will sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would end the few remaining restrictions on abortion, provided a Democratic Congress approves the bill.

And the inches of progress abortion foes have made since 1973 will be wiped away with a journey of thousands of miles yawning before them. Would a Republican, say, John McCain, have made matters better? Well, did Reagan? Although the president who won the cold war was eloquently pro-life, he moved lips but little else in opposition to abortion. His successor, the first President Bush, collected votes but otherwise stayed his hands.

These facts and others larger are lost on the pro-life crowd. Even a president whose ardor extended from words to action could not toss Roe, a dubious slice of jurisprudence, to the curb, primarily because its prolonged existence has engrained it, not only as precedent but in the fabric of American life. Justices who sniff at the flawed arguments that gird the decision still might be disinclined to overturn it. This renders futile the strategy of changing the law by changing presidents’ partisan hue.

The task of abortion’s opponents is to win the hearts and minds of the people. Otherwise, their cause is a fallacy, a misty dream, like finding gold at rainbows’ ends. They so far have failed to press before the minds of Americans abortion’s central question and its importance, not whether women have the right to do what they will with their bodies, which surely they do, but is that which dwells within the womb life?

We concur with abortion foes’ response to the question, but many Americans are unsure, both regarding the answer and the necessity of their caring. This, in part, is because what constitutes itself as the pro-life movement has been substantively invested in playing the cruel game of politics, the winners of which advance to office while their supporters wait in vain for crumbs.

Another Roe anniversary provides sufficient evidence of the folly of pro-lifers hitching their fortunes to partisan wagons. Until abortion opponents accomplish what now seems impossible, successfully making their case to the American people, they can continue marching in the chill January air to the Capitol steps, but will find they’ve only arrived again at the same place.

WASHINGTON– Officials say President Barack Obama will sign an executive order Friday ending the ban on federal funds for international groups that promote or perform abortion.
     
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GREENVILLE, N.C. – A federal judge has refused to block election officials from enforcing disclosure rules on a group running an ad critical of Barack Obama’s record on abortion.

U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard denied Wednesday a request for an injunction by a North Carolina group called the Committee for Truth in Politics.
 
The group said it ran a television commercial in three states accusing Obama of voting against bills in the Illinois Senate that would have protected infants who survived late-term abortions.

The group hasn’t filed federal election reports because its lawyers said disclosing who gave to the group would violate free speech.

Howard wrote the committee’s arguments don’t stand a great likelihood of success.

A group attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment.

NEW YORK – The spot light on the race for the White House is shifting to Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Thursday’s vice-presidential debate in St. Louis could be a pivotal moment in a race already filled with surprising twists.

Palin outlined the contest in an interview broadcast on the “CBS Evening News.” The Alaska governor says she’s, quote, “the new energy, the new face, the new ideas,” while she says Biden has “the experience based on many, many years in the Senate.”

Anchor Katie Couric asked Palin about her views on contraception, abortion, gay marriage and climate change. Palin said she supports safe and legal contraception. But she opposes the morning-after pill because of her belief that life begins at conception.

As for climate change, she says she wouldn’t “solely blame all of man’s activities.” But Palin acknowledges, “It’s real” and that something needs to be done about it.

A look at where Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain stand on a selection of issues:

ABORTION

McCain: Opposes abortion rights. Has voted for abortion restrictions permissible under Roe v. Wade, and now says he would seek to overturn that guarantee of abortion rights. Would not seek constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
Obama: Favors abortion rights.

AFGHANISTAN

McCain: Favors unspecified boost in U.S. forces.
Obama: Would add about 7,000 troops to the U.S. force of 36,000, bringing the reinforcements from Iraq. Has threatened unilateral attack on high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan as they become exposed, “if Pakistan cannot or will not act” against them.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE

McCain: The co-author of McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is running his general campaign with public money and within its spending limits. He urged Obama to do the same. He applied for federal matching funds for primaries but later turned them down so he could spend more than the limits. The Federal Election Commission belatedly approved his decision to bypass the primary funds, but rejected McCain’s claim that he needed no such approval.

He raised more than $160 million before having to stop to accept the $84 million in public money for the fall. McCain accepted primary campaign contributions from lobbyists.
Obama: The presidential campaign’s fundraising champion has brought in more than $450 million. He is raising private money for his general election, despite his proposal last year to accept public financing and its spending limits if the Republican nominee does, too. Obama refuses to accept money from federal lobbyists and has instructed the Democratic National Committee to do the same for its joint victory fund, an account that would benefit the nominee. Obama does accept money from state lobbyists and from family members of federal lobbyists.
CUBA

McCain: Ease restrictions on Cuba once U.S. is “confident thatthe transition to a free and open democracy is being made.”
Obama: Ease restrictions on family-related travel and on money Cuban-Americans want to send to their families in Cuba. Open to meeting new Cuban leader Raul Castro without preconditions. Ease trade embargo if Havana “begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change.”

DEATH PENALTY

McCain: Has supported expansion of the federal death penalty and limits on appeals.
Obama: Supports death penalty for crimes for which the “community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.” As Illinois lawmaker, wrote bill mandating videotaping of interrogations and confessions in capital cases and sought other changes in system that had produced wrongful convictions.

EDUCATION

McCain: He is not proposing a federal voucher program that would provide public money for private school tuition, in contrast to his proposed $5 billion voucher plan in 2000. Only proposes expansion of District of Columbia’s voucher program. Sees No Child Left Behind law as vehicle for increasing opportunities for parents to choose schools. Proposes more money for community college education. 
Obama: An $18 billion plan that would encourage, but not mandate, universal pre-kindergarten. Teacher pay raises tied to, although not based solely on, test scores. An overhaul of No Child Left Behind law to better measure student progress, make room for non-core subjects like music and art and be less punitive toward failing schools. A tax credit to pay up to $4,000 of college costs for students who perform 100 hours of community service a year. Obama would pay for part of his plan by ending corporate tax deductions for CEO pay. Has backed away from his proposal to save money by delaying NASA’s moon and Mars missions.

ENERGY
McCain: Favors increased offshore drilling and federal money to help build 45 nuclear power reactors by 2030. Opposes drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Proposed suspending the 18-cent a gallon federal gasoline tax but idea got no traction. Global warming plan would increase energy costs.
Obama: Now would consider limited increase in offshore drilling. Opposes drilling in Arctic reserve. Proposes windfall-profits tax on largest oil companies to pay for energy rebate of up to $1,000. Opposed suspension of the gas tax. Proposed releasing 70 million barrels of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve to boost supplies. Global warming plan would increase energy costs.

GAY MARRIAGE

McCain: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Says same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and similar benefits, and states should decide about marriage. Supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.
Obama: Opposes constitutional amendment to ban it. Supports civil unions, says states should decide about marriage. Switched positions in 2004 and now supports repeal of Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.

GLOBAL WARMING

McCain: Broke with President Bush on global warming. Led Senate effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions. Favors plan that would see greenhouse gas emissions cut by 66 percent by 2050.
Obama: Ten-year, $150 billion program to produce “climate friendly” energy supplies that he’d pay for with a carbon auction requiring businesses to bid competitively for the right to pollute and aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Joined McCain in sponsoring earlier legislation that would set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Increase federal fuel economy requirements beyond 35 mpg.

GUN CONTROL

McCain: Voted against ban on assault-type weapons but in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows. Voted to shield gun-makers and dealers from civil suits. “I believe the Second Amendment ought to be preserved – which means no gun control.”
Obama: Voted to leave gun-makers and dealers open to suit. Also, as Illinois state lawmaker, supported ban on all forms of semiautomatic weapons and tighter state restrictions generally on firearms.

HEALTH CARE

McCain: $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals, $5,000 for families, to make health insurance more affordable. No mandate for universal coverage. In gaining the tax credit, workers could not deduct the portion of their workplace health insurance paid by their employers.
Obama: Mandatory coverage for children, no mandate for adults. Aim for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. Says package would cost up to $65 billion a year after unspecified savings from making system more efficient. Raise taxes on wealthier families to pay the cost.

HOUSING
McCain: Open to helping homeowners facing foreclosure if they are “legitimate borrowers” and not speculators.
Obama: Tax credit covering 10 percent of annual mortgage-interest payments for “struggling homeowners,” scoring system for consumers to compare mortgages, a fund for mortgage-fraud victims, new penalties for mortgage fraud, aid to state and local governments stung by housing crisis, in $20 billion plan geared to “responsible homeowners.”

IMMIGRATION
McCain: Sponsored 2006 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., work and apply to become legal residents after learning English, paying fines and back taxes and clearing a background check. Now says he would secure the border first. Supports border fence.
Obama: Voted for 2006 bill offering legal status to illegal immigrants subject to conditions, including English proficiency and payment of back taxes and fines. Voted for border fence.

IRAN

McCain: Favors tougher sanctions, opposes direct high-level talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Obama: Initially said he would meet Ahmadinejad without preconditions, now says he’s not sure “Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now.” But says direct diplomacy with Iranian leaders would give U.S. more credibility to press for tougher international sanctions. Says he would intensify diplomatic pressure on Tehran before Israel feels the need to take unilateral military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.

IRAQ

McCain: Opposes scheduling a troop withdrawal, saying latest strategy is succeeding. Supported decision to go to war, but was early critic of the manner in which administration prosecuted it. Was key backer of the troop increase. Willing to have permanent U.S. peacekeeping forces in Iraq.
Obama: Spoke against war at start, opposed troop increase. Voted against one major military spending bill in May 2007; otherwise voted in favor of money to support the war. Says his plan would complete withdrawal of combat troops in 16 months. Initially had said a timetable for completing withdrawal would be irresponsible without knowing what facts he’d face in office.

SOCIAL SECURITY

McCain: “Nothing’s off the table” when it comes to saving Social Security.
Obama: Would raise payroll tax on wealthiest by applying it to portion of income over $250,000. Now, payroll tax is applied to income up to $102,000. Rules out raising the retirement age for benefits.

STEM CELL RESEARCH

McCain: Supports relaxing federal restrictions on financing of embryonic stem cell research.

Obama: Supports relaxing federal restrictions on financing of embryonic stem cell research.

TAXES

McCain: Pledged not to raise taxes, then equivocated, saying nothing can be ruled out in negotiating compromises to keep Social Security solvent. Twice opposed Bush’s tax cuts, at first because he said they were tilted to the wealthiest and again because of the unknown costs of Iraq war. Now says those tax cuts, expiring in 2010, should be permanent. Proposes cutting corporate tax rate to 25 percent. Promises balance budget in first term, says that is unlikely in his first year.
Obama: Raise income taxes on wealthiest and their capital gains and dividends taxes. Raise corporate taxes. $80 billion in tax breaks mainly for poor workers and elderly, including tripling Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credit for larger families. Eliminate tax-filing requirement for older workers making under $50,000. A mortgage-interest credit could be used by lower-income homeowners who do not take the mortgage-interest deduction because they do not itemize their taxes.

TRADE
McCain: Free trade advocate.
Obama: Seek to reopen North American Free Trade Agreement to strengthen enforcement of labor and environmental standards. In 2004 Senate campaign, called for “enforcing existing trade agreements,” not amending them.

DENVER – Anti-abortion activists unfurled a huge sign Tuesday on a mesa west of Denver equating the Democratic National Convention with abortion, but later removed it at the request of authorities.

The three-line sign on Table Mountain in Golden said “Destroys uNborn Children,” with the capital letters DNC lined up vertically.

Denver-based American Right to Life Action said it placed the sign on the 6,551-foot flattop mountain.

About 50 people hiked up the mesa Tuesday to post the sign, but the heat and the exertion took their toll. Deputies sent to the scene gave those in distress food and water, Jefferson County sheriff’s spokeswoman Andrea Burns said.

Some of the protesters agreed to hike back up and take down the sign, made of more than 2,000 queen-size sheets sewn together to form individual letters. It was displayed for about three hours, and group president Steve Curtis said the letters were visible from west Denver about 10 miles away.

Curtis said the group wanted to send a message to Democrats gathered in the Mile High City because he believes Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights is extreme.

“We didn’t want this opportunity to go unnoticed,” he said.

Posting signs is a violation of the county’s open space regulations which require permits for large groups of people or for any activities outside of hiking, biking or horseback riding on the mountain. Violators can be fined $50, either as a group or per person, but authorities hadn’t decided whether to cite the group, said Thea Rock of Jefferson County Open Space.

American Right to Life Action said the sign is also an attempt to set a Guinness record for largest protest sign. The group says it’s 530 feet tall and 666 feet wide.

Curtis said volunteers in 12 states made the sign in pieces that were then sewn together by workers in Colorado. They worked three shifts a day for four weeks in a junior high gymnasium in suburban Denver and sewed four miles worth of seams, he said.